The Price of Freedom
by Sprocket Teaser
Summary: World War III is a true world war, with an 'everyone for themself' attitude affecting nearly every country. How will Harry, a Freedom Coalition soldier, fulfill a destiny he knows nothing about in world where wizards are old news and nigh extinct?


The Price of Freedom

Sprocket Teaser

**AN & Summary & Necessary Info: **Alright, so, in a nutshell. In the world this story takes place, the world is at war. Not in the 'World War' sense, which isn't as true to definition as it sounds. In this particular war, the ousting of Wizarding kind produced a profound effect the likes of which is not to be believed. Men in Black had that wonderful line in it, 'A person is smart, but people are stupid', to paraphrase anyway. Been forever since I've seen the movie so I can't remember it exactly.

While a few people in the 'Muggle' governments world wide might know about the magical world, when everyone is suddenly offered irrefutable proof (What that was shall be revealed at some point.) that it exists, panic is the only response. Oh sure, plenty of people are excited about it. But, as is proven true time and again, the masses are prone to panic and violence. So, with everyone and their mother becoming suspect, the witch hunts begin again on a global scale.

Governments, both Magical and Muggle, lose control of their citizens, and suddenly it's the dark ages all over again. Countries filled with internal strife. Borders shut down. The phrase 'Might makes Right' makes a return in popularity, and the enlightened age of civilization is largely done and over with. Before anyone can really recover from WWII, WWIII begins and wizarding kind is brought to it's knees. Those left adapt or die. Hiding out amongst those who give them sanctuary simply because they need them.

By the time one Harry James Potter is born, scientific data has been compiled on 'wizards' by the simple route of autopsy and experimentation. They have a nice genus-species classification and everything. But that's not important to the rank and file. Terms for them differ with culture and location, but there are very few real 'Wizards and Witches left', simply magical progeny. In the Freedom Coalition, the generally accepted term for them is SHIP's. 'Shit Happens If Possible.' Owing to the fact that the magically inclined typically pull of incredible acts when stressed properly.

In the Research and Development sector of the FC, a stroke of genius comes about when studying the phenomenon known as poltergeists. Nearly every battlefield produces one, and battlefields are numerous. Studying the peculiar brand of ectoplasm left as a poltergeist expends it's energy between fits, a careless researcher became infected by the substance and caused quite a bit of malicious mischief before being taken down. In the wake of this, experiments began on POW's, carefully monitored to discover if such a thing could be created as soldier gifted with poltergeist powers.

The experiments were all seeming failures until a SHIP became the subject. Although the man died quickly, progress was made. Within a year, the first successful poltergeist soldier was created. The term 'Protogeist' came about due to a comment made in idle by an observer who was hungover and had slurred speech.

The term was then pitched as the official title with some spin on the term, "Proto meaning 'first' and they're soldiers first' "

Seeing as how this AN/Summary has gone on far longer than I planned, I'll simply say that our story begins with Harry and will more than likely end with him. But as of yet, he isn't aware of this as he lays prone in hiding while members of his unit chitchat a quarter mile from an outpost on the outskirts of what was New Galloway in Scotland.

-*-

"-was fuggin' beautiful mate, I'm telling you." The low gravel tumbler voice was even harsher on the ears in whispered form then when the man, a Max Hardnen, spoke at his normal volume. His current topic? Bowel movements. "Like that sensation right before you vomit, remember that?" There were a few wheezed bits of laughter in answer to the question. He was preaching to the choir. Words like 'sensation' were spoke with reverence this far from territories held by Freedom Coalition. After all, the FC was their home, their port of call. More to the point, the FC produced the drug that let the monsters they unleashed resume their humanity.

The young skirmisher who listened to the talk could only give the mildest hint of a smirk as he listened to Max talk with half an ear. He liked Max after all, the man was somehow more human still than all present, for all that he was one of the first to ever successfully survive the horrendous mutation of soul and body brought about by the science of warfare and the depravity of necessity.

Rolling one eye just a touch, independent of the other that remained firmly fixed down the sight of his scope, the skirmisher looked into the distorted and pockmarked ruin of Max's face. Max had been victim of a failed assault on a British stronghold back some 6 years into the past. He'd lost both eyes and his face had become a disturbing, pulpy mess that, when he was back home and under the influence of SoL – 'Spark of Life' – oozed plasma and puss as frequently as saliva and sound. The surgeon who'd put him back together had done a phenomenal job even getting him that far. In truth, it was only the odd peculiarity of the poltergeist energy infused into his very being that allowed him to live at all, let alone continue his duties.

Max had been a handsome man at one point, the skirmisher knew, having seen photos of the man from before the experiments, before the surgery. Max Hardnen had a daughter, pure as snow and twice as beautiful and a wife of the same cut. When she'd seen her husband after his return, she'd cut him lose, but wouldn't stop him from seeing the sweet little girl as long as he wore his mask when at home. The skirmisher thought that to be what kept him so 'clean'. After all, the rest of the men in this unit, the dreaded 'Ghost Rifles', were true to the opinions of the regular army.

'We are monsters, every one of us but you, Max,' the skirmisher's thoughts went, and with a quiet sense of pride that everyone in their unit shared. Young Harry Potter, the skirmisher in question chuckled quietly in that breathy sub vocal manner that was the habit of his as he listened to Max continue waxing eloquent over the last glorious bm he'd had before he'd been weened off the drug again as his unit was ordered to the front once more.

While other men in the unit would gleefully describe a sexual conquest in the whore's quarter, Max, who had felt genuine love when he went by the name of Xenofilus Lovegood, had never once visited them. When he was home, he exulted in the self contained biological splendors. Enjoying simply what his body could provide him in the way of feeling, what his daughter, Luna Lovegood, supplied in the way of simple affection. Harry felt this to be one of the reasons the men respected him as they did. Max hadn't lost his connection to the world. Never forgot in the heat of savagery that he was still human in his heart if not his body anymore.

Harry could still remember, amidst the brutality of his first assault, the oddly gentle fashion in which he'd executed the opposition. Never once causing a single man, woman, or child any pain beyond that split second necessary if he could help it. Harry himself had come out of the garrison cloaked in the rich blood of his enemies even with the phasing he was capable of.

'We are monsters. All of us but you, Max.' The thought came again, just as pride filled as before, but that was the end of his sentiments for now. A dark shadow moved at the range of his scope and his body trained, practiced and combat tested, reacted as smoothly as a well oiled machine. Even before his attention was fully settled on the scope, his trigger finger squeezed and at the farthest range of effective fire, a boy younger than he was lifted and slammed into the wooden wall of his barracks before the 'crack' of Harry's rifle even reached a third of the distance to the target.

The time for sentimentality and jest was over. The protogeist soldiers surged forth, over the earth mound of the mass grave they'd hidden themselves behind and began tearing across the distance to the outpost itself. The distance shrinking rapidly as running steps became the inhuman leaps of men not as severely bound by the restrictions of gravity as was proper. The gun shot from Harry's rifle had been the signal to begin the attack. His target had simply been the next sentry to come within range, and with the boy dead, despite the sound of his rifle, the Ghost Rifles had the opportunity to get to the outpost with a low risk of being seen until it was too late.

By the time the first alarm went up in the base, it _was_ too late. The protogeist's had phased out enough that their steps made no sound on approach. The men infused with the spiritual conglomeration of residual violent death, hatred and fear so thick it could choke were remorseless, they took no prisoners and left no messages. That essential part of humanity that would make a sane man hesitate to slit the throat of a child was lost in the violent maelstrom of their existence, smothered under the raging need to affect that which was beyond themselves.

It was over in less than four hours, and not a single living person was left inside the outpost. The Ghost Rifles were already moving again.

-*-

_The small girl huddled over an infant, ducked back into the dark cubbyhole of a desk in an office that had already been swept through and was now littered in pieces of a body that had been a smiling father explaining the importance of his job to a doting child who doted on the younger child in her arms, was staring out with eyes so wide they seemed unnatural. Her hammered in her chest so loud and precious Harry had been unable to miss it as he moved through the building. He'd tracked her down with ease and now knelt before her, all smiles and gore. It bothered him not a bit that he knelt in a pile of offal that had, in all, likely hood, come from the man who had so recently defined much of the scared little girl's world._

"Harry, are you listening to me?"

_Harry tilted forward, holding a hand out to the girl as if to pull her into safety. There was no need for the act, of course. But he knew it scared her even further and the cloying tendrils of fear were a drug that called to him just as strongly as SoL would when he neared the borders of the FC. Harry was already reaching the limitations of his body to remain in phase, and the girl's terror was like a furnace, soothing the cold that had begun to creep into him, warning him he'd need to solidify soon or he'd dissipate as had anyone who'd ignored the warning. It didn't matter, she called to him a broken voice to thick with animal 'fight or flight' response to even be intelligible._

"Harry, damn it. This is important, I know your probably..."

_She'd only just begun to inch forward, panic so overwhelming that the hint of kindness was her undoing, she had needed something to hold on to or her fragile, infantile mind would snap. One hand, slicked in still warm arterial blood, gently grasped hers while the other slid the hunting knife loose from it's sheath. The girl had no time to scream as he'd -_

Harry jerked to the left and went cross eyed as the pain hit him in a literal sense. His cousin had struck him to gain his attention. "Fuck! Dudley, you know the body's extra sensitive right after the injection kicks in!" His voice was a snarl, but he quieted quickly enough at seeing Dudley's apologetic nod.

"I know, Harry, but you were gone again." Dudley Dursley, had come a long way from the portly boy he'd been as a child. He was now six feet of solid muscle, though he still possessed porcine features that belied the incredible mind behind those dishwater brown eyes that looked searchingly into his cousin's own brilliant emerald green ones. "I need you here with me because this is important. You're going out again."

Shock and rage spoiled the passive look on Harry's face as he nearly leaped out of his seat in an attempt to get right into Dudley's face. "What the fuck do you mean I'm going out again?"

Protogeist's were guaranteed more downtime than any other soldier in the field by necessity. The augmentation they underwent made them very hard to injure and even harder to kill, but it came at a heavy cost. The longer they were gone, the more they fought... essentially, the less time they spent under the influence 'SoL' the more likely it was they would simply vanish. There were no desertions, nothing like that. Protogeists were essentially disconnected. Without time spent under the influence of the spark of life, that 'spark' itself would lose it's tenuous grip on the body, and the body would simply drop like a puppet with it's strings cut.

After the last target, the Ghost Rifle's had been down two, both lost to that grim reality. Max's unit that Harry belonged to hadn't even been back two two full days yet. Harry's body was still undergoing the injections of the drug that would re-anchor his spirit to his body, a process that lasted just over a week, which would put him back in touch with his sense of taste, smell and, far more importantly, touch. He would have the better part of three months in the FC's territories before the drug would completely cycle out.

Within a week, they'd be the elite puppeteers of their own bodies and sent back out to hammer the British. Two months of near superhuman status as troops that could, by and large, shrug off bullets and ignore dismemberment. Troops that could see without eyes, hear without ears, leap nearly thirty feet from a standstill and almost twice that at a run. They were protogeists. Humans injected with the distilled essence of the odd phenomenon known as poltergeists.

Poltergeists were 'discovered' by the SHIP's in the army. They had a scientific designation by the researchers of the FC of course, but the grunts of military society had a history rich in crude shorthand, and the FC was no different. SHIP stood for 'Shit Happens If Possible', which described all those people who saw what couldn't be seen and sometimes performed miraculous actions. Harry himself was a SHIP, as was every other member of his unit. You had to be a SHIP to be a protogeist. Dudley and Harry had been children still when the first protogeists were made, but the reports were available for Dudley to read, and he'd assured his cousin that the result of attempting to infuse a regular man or woman with the poltergeist energies was grisly.

SHIP's could survive it though. So when Harry, an accomplished skirmisher by age sixteen, proved himself to be one of those lucky few who seemed to have a knack for the odd, he'd immediately been volunteered by his then commander for compatibility testing. Testing positive, he'd undergone the procedure within a day and completed his training some six months later. He'd lucked out, getting attached to Max's unit, because out of all of them, Max's Ghost Rifles had the lowest loss rate. Max kept his soldiers safe and always took the heat for returning early if necessary.

They were incredibly effective and nigh unbeatable, and in truth, despite the reverence and prejudice that went hand in hand with the regular citizenry and soldiers in the FC when dealing with the protogeists, their inception had been the turning point in a losing war. For all that though, they were incredibly fragile. If the protogeist soldiers weren't given down time, they were beyond useless, they were dead, simple as that, so Harry felt more than justified for the urge to choke his cousin, though he did not give into that urge.

"Dudley, I'm getting up and walking out of this office in five seconds with the knowledge that I misheard my cousin sentencing me and everyone else in my unit to death. Because the man I think of as my brother for all that we did not, in fact, spring from the same uterus, would not be so stupid." Having said his piece, Harry stood, hugged the huge man and turned, attempting to do just as he said before the palpable rage that lurked constantly within him sought it's way out beneath the suppression factor of SoL and caused him to give his cousin a life threatening thrashing. He was stopped cold before he'd made more progress than turning though.

"We may have found a way to end this war." Dudley's voice was quiet, and lacked the confidence of the berserker he'd been before the loss of a leg had caused him to be rotated out of the regular army. Before his fiendishly sharp mind and disturbingly flexible imagination had won him a spot in the R&D division.

Harry's shoulders sagged in response to the words and tone. Those words were all it took really, to seal the fate of an entire unit of elite soldiers, perhaps more. Max would have the final word of course, but Harry, for various reasons, had quite a bit of pull. If Dudley could convince Harry on this idea, he could convince Max. The rest of the unit would follow Max's word without thought, even if it was suicide. "How?"

"Our spies have found something. Something amazing." Dudley began to pull out papers and maps, arraying them neatly on his desk and pointing to particular ones that Harry was to read immediately. "Reports indicate an intense concentration of energy in the heart of London. The British have unearthed another of those places." Dudley didn't have to explain what 'those' were. SHIP's had gone by another name roughly forty years previous. 'Wizards', they had been called. Their discovery had sparked a war the likes of which boggled the mind.

"This one seems to have been a governmental hub for them. Their's all sorts of things in there from the reports. British forces have already gutted the portable stuff, and I'm sure we'll be feeling the affects of them soon enough." Dudley paused long enough to grimace in unison with his cousin. Every time something was found either side, what could be used immediately was, and what couldn't was studied. Either way, the fighting always took an extra brutal turn in the short term until things evened out once more with a few improvements of defense met by offense and offense met by defense.

"But that's not germane to this discussion. The important thing is, deep in the heart of the building, they found something that can't be moved. Something that causes instant death. Our spy told us that they witnessed a man touch it and then, he was simply gone. It's an arch. Clear as day. You stand one side and see the other just fine. But... put one finger in and you're gone. Simple and clean. No fuss, no muss, no body." Dudley paused, giving Harry a significant look.

Harry, not having caught up on the full report, misunderstood. "But Christ, Dudley, London's dead center in their forces. We couldn't even take that place yet, let alone hold it." He was angry now, and ready to walk again. The higher ups tended to treat the proto's like shock troops. A role that, had they been able to gather numbers, they would perform superbly in. However, they were roughly twelve men to a unit, and due to their fragility, there was rarely more than two unit's active at a time, and even more rarely in the same area.

"You would need to mobilize the entire army for one solid push to even take it, and then it'd be stretched so thin FC'd be gutted and shattered in a week." But Dudley simply shook his head at Harry, not rattled or disappointed.

"Have faith in your cousin, eh?" Dudley smiled slightly and took out one last paper, a very non-technical diagram of what looked like a mechanical heart. "We don't need to hold London. We don't need to take London. We don't even need to take the building it's in. All we need is to get this," pointing to the diagram with a flourish now, Dudley paused, knowing the gravity of his request. "Into the archway. One of our own 'Wizards' worked in that very building a long time ago."

Harry was shocked into silence, first by the very absurdity his cousin proposed, and then, eclipsing the previous shock, was the fact that a real wizard still existed and was working for them. With his mouth hanging open, he knew he looked rather stupid, but Harry couldn't help himself. His cousin, thankfully, didn't point out his state to him.

After giving Harry a moment to collect himself, Dudley continued. "He studied the archway when he worked there... and believes that it is a doorway to the afterlife, as it were." Dudley quirked a small smile at the euphemism quality to the word before resuming his speech. "More to the point, he believes that this device can, in a very short term effect, turn this archways energy outwards. We don't know the range, though we speculate it would blanket a radial mile. Leaving nothing and no one alive."

Harry was silent, as was Dudley. The enormity of the declaration was impossible to comprehend for a moment. If it worked, it would gut the British. From the maps, the building in question was easily in range of the high command. If they could pull this off, they would cripple the government in one swoop. The fighting would continue of course, but the head would be cut from the snake. The body would certainly thrash but without anything more than emergency coordination, the FC's army would roll over it quick enough, and the island that Harry had lived on his entire life would be free again.

With this vision of true freedom heavily clouding his mind, Harry looked up at his cousin and gave a sad smile, knowing he was signing on for his last mission in all likelihood. "I'll tell M-"

Dudley cut him off with a wave. "No. This doesn't involve your unit. It involves you and a few others, but only you of your unit." Harry arched a brow in surprised query before motioning for Dudley to continue. With a heavy sigh, Dudley did so. "Harry, in the 5 years you've been a soldier, you've amassed a rather stellar record. Before you were enrolled in the Protogeist Program, you were in and out of the British Masters Territories without discovery multiple times. In fact, before you were spotted as a SHIP, you'd been gunning for a spot in the deep insertion program, remember?"

Harry gave a grudging nod to this, having an inkling of where this conversation was headed but still unsure. He was doped to the gills to tamp down on his awakening sense of touch as his body pitifully informed of various injuries he'd sustained in the last two months, which did nothing for his comprehension. "But that's impossible now. Once you're a protogeist, you're a slave to the cycle. I could get inserted yeah, but after two months I'd drop dead, and any progress I made would be lost."

Dudley simply nodded along, not interrupting, after all, he was about to be asking a lot of his cousin. "Not entirely impossible. For one, if you agree to this, you're going in still anchored." Anchored was the slang for those under the effects of SoL. "But... in a different fashion then you're used to." At Harry's curious look, Dudley continued. "A modified supplementary injection is going to be introduced into your system over the next month. What it's essentially going to do is keep you in a state like the withdrawal period, but without the pain."

Harry could only sigh at the idea. The final week or two in FC territory was an odd time. Uncomfortable at best, and rather nasty at worst. Your spirit began to disconnect again, as the drug cycled out, leaving you in a 'half-life'. You began to go in and out of phase at random, periodically losing touch with this or that sense. Your strength began to return, an affect based on muscles freed of that 'annoying' tendency to work at less than full strength through self preservation. The larger advantages of being a protogeist wouldn't make their reappearance until the drug was fully out of your system, but the rest were more than enough to make people uncomfortable. However, he already knew he was doing this, so he supposed it didn't matter. The rewards were to great.

"Alright, but why me? Without modesty, I can say that I'm good. I'm more developed than some proto's who've been in the program a lot longer than I have. Still, there's certainly better out there." Harry wasn't worried about nepotism. After all, the risks involved with simply being a spy were much higher than a combat troop. If you were caught, you weren't allowed to attempt to fight your way out. You committed involuntary suicide and that was that. Your mind was conditioned for it, and your subconscious knew exactly where the poison capsule was.

"Harry... it's because, not only are you good, but because you're both young and relatively uninjured." Protogeists became masses of stitched together scar tissue within their first year if they survived that long. Because of an inability to feel pain combined with the ability to 'heal' themselves, they walked could continue to fight after walking through a wall of gunfire. If they lost a limb and couldn't find the time to hold said limb in place long enough for it to reattach, the body simply clotted the stump and you moved on. If they were eviscerated, they would attempt to make it back to a surgeon as swiftly as possible while remaining phased. A protogeist was hard to kill because they could force their body to function beyond the extreme range of it's ability. Enemy forces had to damn near destroy them before the were well and truly dead. It all left it's mark though. Max's faceless head was a perfect example of this.

Harry's own body was, as his cousin said, relatively uninjured. A bullet hole here and there, a blade scar or two, but Harry had always possessed superb hand eye coordination coupled with reaction timing that was nearly supernatural, and he hadn't lost it as a protogeist. While others in his unit pushed their body to power through gunfire without flinching, Harry had a knack for making his body respond to a threat by doing it's best to move aside.

"-omeone who looks like they've seen action and survived, not someone who looks like a protogeist." Harry looked up sharply, torn from his musing as Dudley spoke up again. "One of our better placed spies, someone I trust implicitly, has set up the perfect insertion. A front line soldier who, while relatively fresh, was injured recently and now sits in a medical outpost, being treated. He's your build, and very nearly your age. Most importantly, his father, who will be on the continent for the next few months has ordered a commission for him once he's fit for duty." Harry nodded, accepting the folder Dudley passed him as he reached a pausing point. Inside was the man in question. Small, but not necessarily scrawny. Green eyed and black haired. A cocky grin set in place with pearly white, even teeth.

"Dudley, this is beyond insertion, though. This is replacing someone. You're not talking falsified papers and attitude adjustment.. you're talking.. well.. becoming someone else! I never even made it through the second month of training before they figured I was a ship and sent me off for testing. I-" For the second time, Dudley cut Harry off with a wave.

"We don't just need a spy. We need someone who can get close, quickly, without being caught. That's the spy part. What comes next is what we need a protogeist for. The next step is, once you're in London, and, more importantly, near the building, preferably with an excuse to get inside, to get this," a finger thumped down on the diagram of the mechanical heart diagram. "Into that arch. It would take years, possibly a decade or more, to get some one in place through proper means. The simple fact is, we don't have that kind of time." Dudley paused for effect, then swallowed as a hard look came over him.

"The British Mastery has ordered sterilization of Ireland." Harry recoiled in shock. Ireland was the FC's birthplace. More to the point, their continuing war with the British war was the only reason that the FC on the British Master's home front was succeeding. Without the division of forces, the superior military of the British would be free to pound on the FC until it crumbled, and they wouldn't have the shores of their sister island to fall back to if it were sterilized.

"You see why this is so important now don't you? We need to cripple them before they can pull it off or we're done. If we go, the British are gonna join forces with those bloody 'Spencs' and crush the German's once and for all." Dudley sighed, making an attempt to reign in his temper. The reality was grim. Germany was, for all intents and purpose, the only real possibility at allies the FC possessed. There was Iceland, yes, but when the magical world had been unearthed nearly half a century before, WWIII had begun and the poor island nation was beaten into the ground by Greenland, and only managed to save itself by signing over sovereignty to the superior island. It was the same story the world over. Small countries and tiny island nations found themselves pushed to extinction with precision strikes and ruthless genocide where necessary. If you didn't capitulate, your people died, and within months your homes housed your enemies. Now the world was divided into superpowers and underdogs.

The ones most pertinent to the FC were the British Masters, who had taken the United Kingdom for themselves, unopposed until a small group in Ireland exploded into notoriety and claimed a third of the island nearly overnight. Their influence quickly spread to Scotland and now, some fifteen years later, the FC claimed all of Scotland and a sizable portion of Ireland. More to the point, the Freedom Coalition had been gradually claiming more and more land despite the military superiority of the British Masters. The reason they'd come this far was because the 'Spencs', slang for those in the combination of what had been France and Spain, were to busy with Germany and their Swiss allies to give more than token assistance to their ally, the British Masters. If they sterilized Ireland though, they'd have all the power they needed to beat the FC and then reclaim Scotland. From there they could repopulate Ireland at their leisure while pounding on Germany from yet another front, and Germany, despite it's power, was already fighting a multi fronted war as it was.

Harry simply blew out a breath and nodded. His decision made. "When do I start?"

-*-

**AN: **Aaaand that's the first chapter. I debated on beginning his insertion, but I felt this was a comfortable place to end it for a moment. I have this labeled Harry/Tonks, though I'm not planning on having any real element of romance in this particular fic. Think of her as more of a friend, possibly one with benefits though I doubt I'll write it out like that.

I don't have any particular update schedule planned. My life is pretty hectic and my job is stressful and demanding, but we'll see. I do promise to devote some time to writing every day. I think a beta would be helpful, hint hint.


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